Job Details

As an early member of the company's newly formed Data & AI team, you will work closely with the Team Lead to build the function from the ground up and scale our client project delivery.

Our Data and AI strategy has three pillars: People (internal transformation), Projects (client solutiondelivery), and Product (SaaS development). You'll primarily focus on the Projects pillar-leading client engagements that solve real business problems through data science and AI-while contributing to our product roadmap by abstracting reusable components from client work.

You'll work on high-impact projects including SKU rationalization, inventory optimization for retail and CPG clients, and price optimization for entertainment industry leaders. This remote-first role offers significant autonomy, direct client interaction, and the chance to shape both our technical direction and team culture as we grow.

RESPONSIBILITIES
The Senior Backend Engineer (Data/AI) plays a vital role in delivering transformative data and AI solutions to our clients. Your involvement in initiatives will include, but are not limited to:

Client Project Delivery (70%)
• Lead client projects from discovery through production deployment, owning the full technical lifecycle
• Interface directly with clients to understand business challenges and translate them into technical solutions
• Design and build production-ready data science and AI solutions using Python, modern ML frameworks, and agentic AI (Pydantic AI)
• Develop sophisticated models for inventory optimization, price optimization, SKU rationalization, and process automation
• Travel to client sites (up to 40%) for onboarding, discovery workshops, and strategic engagements
• Ensure solutions deliver measurable business value and meet success criteria established during discovery

Product Development & Technical Assets (20%)
• Abstract reusable components and patterns from client work into our SaaS product platform
• Build and maintain scalable, modular codebases that can be deployed across multiple clients
• Develop data pipelines, ML models, and AI agents that become core product features
• Establish technical standards, best practices, and documentation for the growing team
• Contribute to architecture decisions and technical strategy for the Data & AI business unit

Team Development & Collaboration (10%)
• Work closely with the Data Team Lead in a highly collaborative, remote-first environment
• Eventually mentor and manage junior engineers as the team scales
• Participate in technical decision-making and help shape the team's culture and processes
• Contribute to internal knowledge sharing and technical documentation

We are a company committed to creating diverse and inclusive environments where people can bring their full, authentic selves to work every day. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer that believes everyone matters. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment regardless of their race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, national origin, ancestry, genetic factors, age, disability, protected veteran status, military or uniformed service member status, or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to ...@insightglobal.com.To learn more about how we collect, keep, and process your private information, please review Insight Global's Workforce Privacy Policy:

Required Skills & Experience

Required:
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Economics, Data Science, or related field
• 6+ years of professional experience with Python in production environments
• Proven track record of deploying AI/ML models to production and solving real business problems
• Strong proficiency with the PyData stack: pandas/polars, scikit-learn, matplotlib
• Solid SQL skills for data querying and manipulation
• Experience with agentic AI frameworks (Pydantic AI preferred, or similar)
• Proficiency with Jupyter or Marimo notebooks for exploratory analysis and prototyping
• Strong GitHub skills and collaborative development practices
• Client-facing experience is non-negotiable - you must be comfortable presenting to and advising clients
• Practical, hands-on experience (not just academic or theoretical background)
• Willingness to travel

Nice to Have Skills & Experience

Nice to Have:
• Consulting or professional services background
• Startup experience (ideally a mix of both consulting and startup environments)
• Frontend or full-stack development skills for added versatility
• Experience with dbt for data transformation workflows
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Experience in retail, CPG, or entertainment/events industries
• Knowledge of additional ML frameworks (LangChain, TensorFlow, PyTorch)

Benefit packages for this role will start on the 1st day of employment and include medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as HSA, FSA, and DCFSA account options, and 401k retirement account access with employer matching. Employees in this role are also entitled to paid sick leave and/or other paid time off as provided by applicable law.